The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 5: The Gift of the White Moon, Part 5

 The rest of the week was the only time she had difficulty remembering. She slept little, even when she was back in her apartments. The Empress-Consort and Prince Silenio were both far too distracted to notice any distress, for a cousin of Yvelle's and a promising lieutenant in the Second Western Cohort -- the detachment of the Imperial army at Fort Shale which answered to Selenio -- died in a freak accident after being thrown from his horse during a perfectly ordinary ride through the forest preserve outside the city. After much discussion with his wife, the Emperor declined to postpone the concert planned for Denisius's arrival. "We can pay a tribute to the poor boy instead, my dear -- it will be useful to see how young Lord Marhollow comports himself in such unfortunate circumstances." 

Carala was not part of this discussion and did not care. She would have been incapable of contributing to it if she had been. Her diary had become a scrawling series of disconnected phrases and shaky sketches of wolf eyes that, when he saw them, would genuinely alarm Varallo Thray.

Of the Imperial family only the Princess Sarai seemed to suspect something was wrong with her sister, but she couldn't fathom what. She had indeed been hurt by the dismissal the night of that dinner -- she had been looking forward to seeing Carala for months -- but hurt gave way to concern as she observed the nearly drugged way Carala roamed the Palace. But Sarai could not draw her mother's worry away from her poor dead cousin.

Tacen did not show her the wolf again, and appeared fully human when she wandered to the Maathinhold to meet with him. They did not even make love (you mean rut -- what love? Carala thought hazily), as Tacen was consumed with planning how best to spirit them both out of the city. The plan was simple, as it relied on both of them roaming in their wolfish shapes. The fact that soon she would indeed become a wolf was something Carala simply could not accept, even through her ever more heightened senses and the sweet ache on her innermost thigh where the wolf had bitten her. But that inevitability rushed toward her with every hour, for Saya would be at its full brightness on Cloakday night, just in time for the weekend.

Tacen's demands were simple. She was to gather as much jewelry as she could wear and a heavy cloak, and conceal them in the abandoned apple orchard that stood a mile or so into the forest preserve. He already had a nearby cache and would provide commoner clothes for her to wear under the cloak. When they assumed human shape on Graceday morning, they would take her jewels, disguise themselves, and travel with the Swiftfoot caravan back to Gallowsport. Tacen didn't covet her wealth -- with that bite he had already stolen the Emperor's most priceless treasure -- but if circumstances forced them apart from the caravan, he wanted them to have some ready coin.

In some hazy way, Carala thought she might be able to play along with him -- that when she got to Gallowsport she could somehow convince this man who knew so much of the wolf's blood to cure her rather than do whatever Tacen had planned for him to do. But such designs were muddy and vague, and for the most part she simply did whatever the wolf commanded her to do. What will she had maintained had almost completely broken in the wake of the bite.

Cloakday morning arrived. Even before six o'clock in the morning, Carala was fully dressed in the beautiful golden gown she liked to wear to Palace concerts, having half-forgotten she would not be attending it if all went to plan. Her lacing was loose and clumsy, as she had done her morning necessaries with no help from her handmaidens. In fact she had dismissed them altogether every day since Tacen had bitten her. No amount of worrying to the Empress-Consort could pull her away from her cousin's funeral preparation; however, she made weak assurances to the handmaidens that Carala was merely suffering from nerves in anticipation of Denisius's visit.

The clocks in the Palace were chiming seven o'clock, briefly rousing Carala from a bleary stupor. She realized she was sitting here in this poorly laced dress and corset; stockings and boots; jewelry and smallclothes; fully clad for a concert before she'd even had breakfast -- sitting before her canvas, foggily trying to bring some measure of definition to Denisius's painted features.

As she looked at the canvas a little more closely her breath caught in her throat in a ragged gasp. Unthinking she had carefully painted wolf eyes onto Denisius's face.

With a cry she hurled the canvas and palette to the floor, scattering her paints in a bright splash of mingled colors. Trailing a loose corset and half-tied boot laces under her cloak, she fled to the Gloaming Wing, to the forgotten servants' entrance, clutching the satchel that contained the items the wolf had requested of her.

Her absence and the state of her apartments were noted shortly after the breakfast hour, throwing the Chalcedony Palace into a panic, a panic quelled by Varallo Thray's steady hand. The greatest difficulty he faced was hiding Carala's disappearance from Denisius Gallis and his men, but he managed it as well as any challenge he had managed in his years of service to the Malachite Throne. At no point did he seem especially surprised by the day's tumultuous events, but then Varallo Thray so rarely seemed surprised by anything.

The old apple orchard was overgrown and treacherous with strangling vines; a perfect hiding place both for these items and, before the night was over, a pair of werewolves. Briefly she considered just staying here; letting whatever transformation awaited her consume her away from the awful, beautiful wolf who had possessed her as surely as an old man named Orson had been possessed by some nameless thing from an unspeakable world. Perhaps a guardsman would find her and put an end to her. But the call of the wolf was too strong, and after only a few minutes she tugged up her hood and made her way back to Talinara, to the Maathinhold where the wolf awaited her.

Despite her protestations, despite her growing terror as the day waned and the night grew, Carala never really came back to herself until -- ironically enough -- her own wolf had emerged, sleek and black and ferally beautiful, staring with terrified amber eyes, Denisius's young and vital scent flooding her nostrils as she panted, her new tail swaying. She knew all the men in that room, even if she didn't know the names of Vos or Quilla, and the part of her that was Carala and not the she-wolf did not want to hurt any of them. When Quilla lost his head, and his blood filled the room, a madness rose in her, and she nearly leaped at the man who was furiously stabbing Tacen -- but then her gaze chanced on Denisius, struggling to get back to his feet, and the madness stilled.

When Tacen died, a howl rose in her throat but she fought it down, terrified to give in any further. At least, she would comfort herself later, the howl had been one of joy and not anguish -- joy at feeling the hold in which Tacen had gripped her breaking irrevocably, something she felt almost as a physical pain, as one will feel a bitter, screaming soreness from an infected cyst followed by sweeping relief once it bursts. Denisius dared to approach her, dared to reach out to her. She longed to throw herself into his arms, allow him to caress her, beg him to accept what she had become. Somehow she said his name. She wished she could have said so much more.

But the shame was too great. When she leapt through the Conservatory window, at last surrendering to the urge to howl, she half-hoped the fall would kill her.